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The next three months in Iraq will look like a veritable fire sale, as 45,000 U.S. forces prepare to leave by the Dec. 31 deadline.

Rather than ship home valuable military hardware, incurring excessive shipping costs, the Pentagon is simply going to leave millions of pieces of equipment behind, including everything from vehicles and body armor to trailers and air conditioners.

When all is said and done, Pentagon planners estimate 3.47 million pieces of equipment worth $313 million will be handed over to the Iraqi government, which still has not asked U.S. forces to stay beyond the December deadline.

The most valuable equipment -- an estimated 1.5 million items -- was shipped home in the last 12 months. About 800,000 pieces of equipment must be removed from Iraq in the next three months.

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top spokesman for U.S. Forces-Iraq, says it wouldn't be cost prohibitive to take these supplies out of the country along with the troops. But there are other considerations.

Basically, their leaving behind about 313 million worth of equipment. But their saying it would cost almost a billion dollars to return all of it. So really saving a lot of money by leaving it there. Later on in the story they stress that no weapons are being left behind, and that when it comes to weapons, Iraq has paid for more then 90% of what we've given them.

In most sports, cold-cocking an opposing player repeatedly in the face with a series of gigantic Slovakian uppercuts would get you a multi-game suspension without pay.

In hockey, it means you have to sit in the penalty box for five minutes.

Most of it just seems to be barriers, buildings, trucks, stuff like that. Their handing it directly to the Iraqi military to use, not just leaving it for the scavengers to pick over.

It'll be interesting to see what happens... Those of us who have been there can (possibly) grasp the immense magnitude of the "footprint" we are leaving behind.

My guess is the first thing that will happen is the locals will raid the VBC Complex and strip every inch of copper wiring out of every building along with the plumbing.... leaving a shucked hulls of (what once was) a usable structure.

They'll then steal every possible piece of equipment that isn't nailed down or too heavy to carry.

The "detainees" being held will be summarily executed or released, depending on their family’s money and/or influence.

And ultimately, where 9 years ago, tens of thousands lined the streets to wave American flags in gratitude, they will now burn our flag and celebrate the expulsion of the "infidels".

Makes no difference to me. I honestly hate the place. They can have all of it and chaos that comes with it.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic but, I've just seen enough of this region to not believe otherwise.